Windows Phone App Review - Smartest Eraser

Smartest Eraser is a photo editing app for your Windows Phone that helps clean up unwanted objects that snuck into your photos. Such as tree limbs, ex-boyfriends, bratty little brothers, a foot and any other item that just doesn't belong. The concept of removing unwanted objects (or subjects) from your pictures can be appealing and a useful tool.

But how smart is the Smartest Eraser? We took it out for a test drive and while the app has potential, there is still a bit of room for improvement.

Smartest Eraser's interface is fairly straight forward. You first choose your photo from your Pictures Hub by tapping the picture button at the bottom of the screen. From there your tools include an eraser button, protect button, a scale tool and an apply button. Just tap the erase button to mark items for removal and the protect button to mark adjacent items to...well...protect.

Just rub your finger over the areas you want to apply the effects on and when done, hit the apply button and let Smartest Eraser do its thing. Images can be zoomed and repositioned by touch. Plus, there is a button-sized preview windows in the upper right corner to help you be a little more precise in your markings.

You can adjust the quality of the processing in the settings. The larger the area marked for removal and the higher the quality, the longer the processing takes. Once your editing is complete you can be saved to your Pictures Hub and/or shared on Facebook.

The concept behind Smartest Eraser could come in handy but the application falls a little short. The app basically cuts the area marked for erasure, stitches the remaining portions and crops things together to make a new photo. The end result isn't as nice as cloning an object out of the picture with Photoshop and more times than not the stitching didn't match or pieces of what was to be removed were still present.

I did find that the app works best when there is ample space between what is being removed and what is remaining. Then you have to hope the app can stitch together the background well enough to keep things consistent. Even with plenty of space between subjects and a plain background, you can still see the stitching.

Smartest Eraser has potential but there is still a lot of work to be done. It is a free app for your Windows Phone and giving it a try won't set you back much. Who knows, your results may differ.

Well, not the 100% same :) This app offers automatic mode, while PhotoPatcher offers Photoshop-style retouch inventory (clone stamp & blur). This app may be better in certain cases - it offers the opportunity to remove some parts of photos without too much effort, but it is not always possible. On the other side, PhotoPatcher is intended for more delicate work.